IONISING radiation such as X-rays and gamma rays can break chemical bonds,
damage DNA and so trigger cancer. But microwaves just don鈥檛 have enough energy
to have the same effect.
And with only a thousandth of the power of a microwave oven, a phone can鈥檛
cook your brain鈥攊f your ear gets warm when you鈥檙e on on the phone, it鈥檚
just the device鈥檚 batteries and circuitry heating up.
So how could mobile phones disrupt living tissue? Few scientists have risen
to the challenge of addressing this question. Perhaps the boldest explanation
comes from Gerard Hyland, a theoretical physicist at the University of Warwick.
But even this remains in the realm of conjecture.
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Hyland is not so much concerned with the intensity of mobile phones鈥�
microwaves as with their frequencies. He believes our cells produce minute
electromagnetic emissions at 鈥渆ndogenous frequencies鈥�. What鈥檚 more, he claims
the emissions of neighbouring cells are coherent, or in phase with one another,
rather like the light produced by a laser.
The problem with microwaves, Hyland claims, is that they can interfere with
these endogenous cellular emissions. 鈥淵ou get a resonant interaction,鈥� he says.
The effect of microwaves on living tissue, Hyland suggests, is similar to the
damage that can be caused if soldiers fail to break step when marching over a
bridge.
Hyland believes cells鈥� endogenous frequencies help control things such as
their rate of cell division鈥攚hich might explain why microwaves could cause
cancer. But the problem is that no one has placed a microwave probe into living
tissue to show that it has the endogenous emissions Hyland postulates.
Hyland also believes he can explain how mobiles could affect cognitive
ability. Mobile phones emit their microwaves in pulses, typically about 10 times
a second. These pulses resonate with the brain鈥檚 alpha waves, which have
matching frequencies, Hyland claims. Again, however, this idea has not been
tested.
